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In my opinion and experience with good habitat, and casual management the SMB would eventually overpower the walleye fishery and deplete the shiner-FHM population. The Shiner-FHM combo will very likely perpetuate with only WE and pellet eating present. I have recently discovered that adult big FHM (3") can maintain a breeding population when only pellet eating perch are present.

Ideally you do not want the WE successfully reproducing. WE recruitment will prevent a good estimation of the size & number of the WE population. Thus one could easily get into a situation of too few shiners and slower growth rates.

I think large rocks/bolders and broken concrete (chunks & slabs) would be better habitat additions to the shallow areas 4ft-6ft deep than the "downed trees".

This particular special habitat pond is a very good way for many of us to learn more about walleye-perch management. Please use this thread to keep us advised of your progress. We like learning and sharing fish raising information on this website.

Last edited by Bill Cody; 10/16/13 10:55 AM.

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To do list:

-100 6" Walleye
- 2 gallons of Perch. They're pond run 15-100 fish per gallon.
- 4 pounds of FHM. A scoop or two a week after that.
- Brush pile/ Christmas trees for some minnow protection.
- Rock piles for walleye habitat. Plenty of nice size fieldstone on site.
- Plant some taller pines along shoreline to provide more shade during the day.
- Have a campfire and a leinenkugels next to the pond after we close on the property tomorrow.

Anything I should tweak or add?

Thanks again for all the advice!

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A dock, you need a dock!

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I am glad to see more people take an interest in WE.

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When you say 2 gallons of perch? What type of fish are you referring to when you say "perch"?

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Yellow Perch. They're usually a mixed bag of sizes. I organize the stocking of a 70 acre lake we live on for our association. They've come before with mostly little ones and they've come with borderline jumbos with smaller ones mixed in. They can fit a lot of little ones in a gallon bucket before they put them in the bags. Was $35.00 a gallon a couple years ago and the WE were 50 cents apiece for a 4-6 in incher. These guys do a better job producing fish than the Mn DNR.

A few years back some/one of their brood stock lakes had a very high water level and made it into the 33' legal road easement. Lets just say the locals took advantage.. Multiple 9 to 11 pound WE were caught. It was a big story in the news around here because they couldn't do anything about it. I heard they would dump tons of minnows in their lakes when their minnow ponds got overpopulated...

I might have to up the amount of minnows I put in.

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Having a pond loaded with shiners sure sounds like a good place to start to me...
Wish I had that problem ....I'm always adding shiners....


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If you are buying small this year's hatch of perch, I think you are making your first major mistake. For growing large perch you should be buying guaranteed pellet trained yellow perch that are 4"-6" and some of last year's pellet perch that are 6"-9" long. Buy perch by the each not by the pound unless the perch are 8"+ long. Be careful and cautious where you buy your brood stock initial stocker fish. They will be the basis of the genetics of the sport fish in the pond and will govern how well all fish progress from the start. Choose wisely. When feeding the perch pellets you can stock 350-500/ac (225-300 4"-6" and 100-200 6"-9"). No pellet feeding, then reduce total YP stocked to 150-300/ac.

I would start with 70-80 walleye and see how they progress and grow. Then stock 15-25 walleye each year for the next 4 years. At yr 3 and there after you can harvest 10-12 of the largest WE/yr.

Don't plant evergreens esp long needle ones closer to the shore than 50ft 70-100ft is better windbreak placement or you will get lots of wind blown pine needles in the pond - not good for water quality. I regret having evergreens too close to my pond.

If you are having to add FHM after the initial stocking with your GSH-YP-WE fishery, you have too many predators; reduce predator biomass, usu start with YP first. You should buy a minnow trap to monitor the shiner-minnow and small perch densities and size structure. Build yourself a larger mesh fish trap using 1/2 mesh. Fish traps are valuable tools for fish managers. Search fish traps here on the PBForum. There are some very good homemade fish traps shown and discussed.

Don't worry about WE having shade.
Use more rock boulder areas than trees for the WE-YP. They actually don't need structure to do well. Structure is mostly for the anglers. How far can fish go to hide in 1.2 ac??? Trees will quickly rot up in several years except for the 3"-4"+dia branches which Xmas tree rotting schedule might be shown in the posts of the thread for Structure Archives. Read the Structure, Cover etc thread here in the Common Q&A Archives for ideas for more permanent underwater habitat-structure.

Last edited by Bill Cody; 10/16/13 07:34 PM.

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Classic and invaluable Cody information...save this post and add it to your likely growing fishery management file. I just did!


Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after. ~ Henry David Thoreau

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OK here is a strange question. Considering decay, can you give a range of the number of Christmas tree to add per acre per year for structure? I have free access to an unlimited number from plantations planted in past years (mostly spruce).

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Personally I would never again add Christmas trees to my pond even if trees were free and someone else put them in. I've seen how fast evergreens and woody branches decay. Plus I try to minimize as much as possible adding all organics which result in more unneeded nutrients in the pond. Fine branched trees and limbs do not last long enough; needles are gone in a year small twigs, branches in about 2 yrs, and large branches only remain for 4-5 yrs. I now prefer the PVC structures which not only do not decompose buy they are very lure snag proof.


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Somewhere on the forum (maybe in the archives) there is a picture of x-mas trees taken year after year after year showing how fast they actually decompose/decay.


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I also use PVC globes and trees as they are cheap, snag free, last forever and can be moved if necessary. I got most of my pvc for free from local plumbers who had scrap.


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Originally Posted By: esshup
Somewhere on the forum (maybe in the archives) there is a picture of x-mas trees taken year after year after year showing how fast they actually decompose/decay.


Pretty sure Eric West posted it in the Super Structure Thread somewhere.

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Thanks, Bill.

Going to go with some black and white spruce that are native to Minnesota. Although I am going to make a bad move and add a couple birch, white and norways for eye candy. Going to try for a Canadian Shield lake type look. Also planning to bring in some very large outcropping style rock for parts of the shoreline. The spruce don't drop their needles so I hope I'll be ahead by the spruce not letting leaves from all the land from entering the pond.

Having a hard time finding the pellet trained Perch up here in Sota. Anybody know of someone that will ship up here? Thanks

Fake garage sale Christmas trees would be ideal if people are going artificial....... I would think.

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My aesthetic goal for my pond at the house was the Canadian Shield lake look. Spruce do drop needles at least my black spruce do. It is pretty surprising how many needles they shed each year. I will try to measure how far my spruce are from the pond this weekend. I get the most needs during the stronger wind storms.

Univ Of WI at Madison fisheries people should know of sources of pellet YP in your region. There might be WI or MN aquaculture website for useful pellet trained YP. When wild YP are stocked into the pond it is harder to get them to accept pellets compared to BG. Actually pretty difficult unless they were pretrained prior to stocking. Do some good homework. Univ of WI did a lot of pioneer work with aquaculture YP and pellet raised WE.


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Spring has finally started to show a glimpse up here in Sota!

I have 80 walleye fingerlings going in the pond in a week.. Still trying to locate those pellet trained perch around here.. Does anybody ship pellet trained perch out?

Started planting some white spruce along the shoreline with just a few white birch mixed in for looks. My hope is that the spruce will form a nice wall to keep future deciduous tree's leaves from blowing in. White pine and Norway pine will be staggered in behind to add height/depth and should end up with the north woods feel I'm looking for. Fairly tree-less right now..

Still trying to figure out how to get the pictures/video I promised on here.

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